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Monday, September 23, 2013

Ciao from Italy: W&M's Correal blogs on playing Stanford, visiting Venice, driving a stick and a shoutout to Delle Donne

Up against Chiney

William and Mary graduate Emily Correal is preparing to play her first season of international basketball in Italy with Fila San Martino. LadySwish is thrilled that Emily has agreed to blog about the experience. This is her second post.

All is well here in Italy. We have been
training now for four weeks and are about three weeks away from the start of
season! We have had six “friendly games,” which are kind of like exhibition
games. We also have practice twice a day and at least a day off each week. I
like having two, two-hour practices a day rather than one really long practice
like in college. It gives you time to recover mentally and physically.

Speaking
of recovering physically, the team has access to a spa that has a heated pool
with massage jets. It is a great way for the muscles to recover, and I have
taken full advantage of this amenity. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, one
of our friendly games was against Stanford. It was awesome playing them. It was
one of our first games together, so we made a lot of mistakes, but overall we
played well. It was a close game, but Stanford ended up winning by 9 points. After the game, Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer
came up to me and talked to me at length. I felt honored to speak with
such a successful coach in women’s basketball.

I have been learning a lot in
practice and in the friendly games. Some
things in European ball take some adjustment. One
thing that is different from U.S. ball is the traveling call. They call traveling
very close, so on my spin moves and when I start to drive, I have to be cautious
and make it obvious that I dribble first before I make my move. Another difference is the defense I am
playing; it is a very aggressive man-to-man, and in college my team played all
zone.

I am learning other things besides basketball techniques -- like how to
tape my own ankles, how to cook Italian food and how to drive stick shift! It
took me a couple weeks to get good at ankle taping and cooking, and I still
haven’t perfected driving stick shift, but I am driving well enough to get
around.

This past weekend we had two off days, so I got brave and took a train
to Venice. I spent the day exploring, and it was a wonderful experience. Venice
is so beautiful; it’s a place I wish everyone could go to at least once,
because it is so unique. I walked around for hours enjoying the scenery and
going into a few museums and shops. I even met a nice couple that works for an English-speaking
radio station in Belgium, and we had a nice conversation during the boat ride
back to the station. It is nice to be able to play basketball during the week
and do some site seeing and adventuring on the days off.

I am really looking
forward to my first game. For opening weekend, all the teams in the league play
on the island of Sardinia. I hear it is very beautiful, and it will be cool
getting to watch all the other teams play. I’m also excited for the first game
because my parents will be there! My birthday is the next day so I asked them
if they would come visit for two weeks as one of my birthday gifts. I also have
two best friends who are planning visits! That’s all I got from Italy.

In
other news, I am happy that my favorite player Candace Parker got MVP and I am
proud of my former CAA opponent Elena Delle Donne for getting Rookie of the Year. God bless and Ciao!

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About Us

Virginia-based Vicki L. Friedman, winner of the 2013 Mel Greenberg Media Award, and Paul White are LadySwish, a blog dedicated to the 13 Division I basketball teams in the state. We love the sport -- its coaches, its players, its fans and its quirks. Both of us are journalists with more than four decades of experience. Our passion fuels us to deliver our best to our fans and followers every day.